Houstonians find light at the end of Harvey

Preparing for a hurricane was quite possibly the most stressful ordeal of my life. What turned into Houston’s worst flooding event to date started as a brush off the shoulder, that is until it got closer.

For days my family contemplated leaving to go somewhere with higher ground like San Antonio or Dallas, but alas, we stayed. To say Harvey is the worst storm I’ve endured is a bit exaggerative, Tropical Storm Allison took a toll on my childhood.

Harvey’s first night in Houston, Friday, didn’t seem all that bad. We got some bands of showers that let loose for a bit, but it wasn’t anything to start worrying about. The worrying started Saturday night when, after hours of rain, it seemed like the sky wouldn’t ever run out of water.

My uncle, his wife and two kids aged 7 and 13, my niece six-year-old niece, my mother, my dog and I all hunkered down for what seemed an eternity. The constant alert of tornado and flood warnings filled the house, passing from one room to another like a kid with a bad cough. An impending sense of doom set over the family as each of us took turns looking out the window, squinting to get a peek at the rising water.

My mother, God bless her heart, thinks she’s a meteorologist. She couldn’t help but pace around the house with a worried face and a nervous trigger finger, constantly refreshing the weather app that only gave way to more pacing and worrying. On top of the weather, my three siblings and father were not at home, giving my mother more cause for concern. My dad is a plant worker and was stuck at work, and my siblings live in Clear Lake, Highlands and the Heights. Add all of those factors up and you get a sleepless night.

Around three a.m., my uncle grew what I thought was the biggest pair of… ah, nerves… and drove his truck to his house to get some supplies – and his massive dog. He returned around four a.m. and began unloading his truck. The street water had risen to about knee high, maybe a little higher. My buddy walked over in the pouring rain to give my bottle of wine back that I had left at his house; talk about priorities.

It was five a.m. when my phone finally went silent. I awoke at nine a.m. to find, more rain! This lasted until about 10 a.m., and then we had our first break. Stepping outside the house at 10 a.m. Sunday was a complete (expletive) show. Children were playing in flood waters like their pool had somehow grown legs and parked itself in the street. Other children from the neighborhoods had taken it upon themselves to blow up floatation devices and relax in the 10-foot deep retention ponds, frolicking like their life depended on it. With not a parent in sight except for some police cruisers blocking the street, no one seemed to mind. Compared to the surrounding areas, my neighborhood in Deer Park got off easy.

As I walked through the trenches, down P Street to my girlfriend’s house, I realized that it could have been much worse. Walking through the entrance of my girlfriend’s neighborhood as groups of kids raced to play in the high waters, somehow finding it within themselves to see a positive in a negative situation. It became clear that Harvey may have had his way with Houston, but he sure as heck wasn’t going to bring our city, or our hopes down.